Get a Dog

Learning how to embrace our human nature

09/17/2024

Lk 7:11-17 Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, "Do not weep." He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, "Young man, I tell you, arise!" The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, "A great prophet has arisen in our midst," and "God has visited his people." This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.

When I first got my dog Apollo lots of people asked me why I decided to get a dog. At first, my reason was to celebrate my 10 year anniversary as pastor of Immaculate Conception. But a better reason has emerged more recently, namely, Apollo makes me more human. Sometimes people are intimidated by a priest in a Roman collar. They think we are from another planet. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then priests are from Pluto, the farthest planet in the solar system and now downgraded and not even a planet.

But when people – even perfect strangers – see me with Apollo, suddenly they feel moved to talk to me. They say, “That’s a beautiful dog!” or they ask, “May I pet your dog?” And the best experience of all is when young couples come for marriage preparation. The young lady is usually polite and cheerful, but the young man is often stoic and standoffish.

But when he hears Apollo bark in my office, his face lights up and he becomes “Chatty Cathy” telling me about his dog and asking about mine. In seminary, they taught us how to become more like Christ’s divine nature – in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) – but Apollo has helped me discover Christ’s human nature. How “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14).

In the gospel today, we see another instance of when Jesus sort of “let’s his hair down” and shows his human nature. He raises a young man back to life and gives him back to his widowed mother. When I was in seminary as a deacon, I preached on this gospel and said Jesus had a premonition of his own death and the heart-breaking sorrow his own widowed mother.

It seems to be a rather spontaneous miracle – moved by the tender love a son for his mother’s pain and sorrow – and not part of a larger divine strategic plan, like when I decided to get Apollo. In other words, it was just Jesus being human and maybe made him a little more approachable too: just a kid who loves his mom. Jesus’ behavior seemed a little less like Pluto and much more like earth.

My friends, it is not only us priests who can seem like we are from another planet, but we can all fall into that trap. That is, we can try to hide our humanity and try to appear better than we really are. We say things like “real men don’t cry” and we hold back our tears. Or maybe we refrain from smiling too much or laughing out loud – or laughing at ourselves – because we think it is a sign of weakness.

Or, we rarely admit we are wrong, or make mistakes, or apologize because we fear other people will think less of us. Like us seminarians we try hard to embrace Christ’s divine nature (and hope to appear perfect) and forget he also had a beautiful, tender human nature as well. We, too, need to learn to let our own hair down, even if we don’t have any.

G. K. Chesterton ends his autobiography called “Orthodoxy” enumerating ways Jesus let his hair down to show his humanity. He writes: “The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears; [Jesus] showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city…

“Solemn supermen and imperial diplomats are proud of restraining their anger; He never restrained his anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell.” In other words, a careful reading of the gospels reveals a Jesus who wanted us to see both his divinity but also his humanity, almost as if he, too, had a dog named Apollo.

There is an old saying that always makes me pause and think: “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.” That is, sometimes we can think so much about heaven – returning to Pluto our true home – that we forget we have landed on earth to accomplish an urgent mission. Part of that earthly mission is to discover our humanity – it’s blessings, burdens, and brokenness – so that all of it can be redeemed by Christ. And one of the best ways to get in touch with our humanity is to get a dog.

Praised be Jesus Christ!